A right for paid work

January 18, 2025
Tax-free stipends, last year, for Ph.D. candidates, amounted to A$32,192, about $619 a week. There is concern that the amount is too close to the poverty line.     Without payments for my professional work, which stems from a Ph.D. and two graduate diplomas, and a decade paid career, and a dozen paid contracts at a generous […]
Tax-free stipends, last year, for Ph.D. candidates, amounted to A$32,192, about $619 a week. There is concern that the amount is too close to the poverty line.

 

 

Without payments for my professional work, which stems from a Ph.D. and two graduate diplomas, and a decade paid career, and a dozen paid contracts at a generous community-professional rate over the years, I get about $393 a week. A few years ago we had Australian parliamentarians arguing that there was no reason to lift the level of social security payments as the amounts were adequate for “job [vulgar swearword]”.

 

 

I work at a high level in professional writing and research, such that my friends are concerned at the effects of the labour on my health.

 

 

No economic and age discriminations in Australia? Look at me, a human to the eye and attempt to tell me that I am wrong, and look at me directly in the eyes and explain to me your personal intent in the world of paid work; your rationalisation like another human being.

 

 

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men [and women, etc.] to do nothing”

 

 

Yes, I am only one person, but how many Australian professionals are under-employed and are struggling to make ends meet? We know that the government numbers of “unemployment” hide the true extent of the problem. The number would be more than society expects and we are human beings, with a human right for paid work.

 

 

 

Sources:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack Grove. V-cs warn ‘poverty line’ PhD stipends imperil Australian research, The Times Higher Education Supplement (THE), January 17, 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association’s electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.

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